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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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Chief Justice Chase, 



BY JAMES S. PIKE. 



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Powers, Macgowan & ^lipper, Printei^s, 
Corner Nassau and Frankfort Streets, 

(Son Bdildino ) 

1873- 



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CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE. 



In the death of Chief Justice Chase there disappears 
from the ranks of the living the last of the four great men 
whom President Lincoln called into his Cabinet during 
the war of the rebellion. 

Messrs. Seward, Stanton, Fessenden, and Chase were 
men of diverse character and qualities, but each in his 
own way was unrivalled. In the high arena of Senatorial 
debate Mr. Fessenden was superior to either. In the ca- 
pacity of War Minister, with a million of men in the field, 
not one of them could have matched Stanton's imperious 
energy. In the direction of our foreign affairs, neither 
could have exhibited the copiousness, the fertility, or that 
genial facility of exposition that marked Mr. Seward's 
diplomacy. And it is not too much to say that no man 
in the whole country could have equalled Mr. Chase in 
that most embarrassing task of all, the successful man- 
agement of our finances. 

At the opening of the war there was nothing so diffi- 
cult as the financial problem, and there was none upon 
which so little light was shed, either by our own expe- 
rience or that of other nations. The vast proportions of 
the war required a corresponding system of finance to 
meet its enormous and constantly expanding demands. 
It was to Mr. Chase's bold simplicity and clearness of 
thought, and, above all, to his firm grasp and unbending 
will, that we owe the system which carried the country 



triumphantly through its trials. - He exhibited, far be- 
yond aiiyof hiscolleagi^es^that quality of administrative 
ability which the Frenc^i g^^ above every other, and which 
they term initiative. I^ ^his respect he was the greatest 
of them all. To cast do^j^ ^i^ systems and establish new, 
which shall stand the U.^^^ ^f ti^ig ^nd experience, and es- 
pecially to do this duri;Qg tj^^ tempest of civil war, is the 
work of genius. This i|g ^.i^^t Mr. Chase did. He over- 
threw the whole bankij^g gygtem of the country, and he 
erected another upon i^g r^ins. And he did this alone, 
and against the passiv^ ^j, active resistance of the entire 
community. When allj ordinary resources foiled to fur- 
nish money for the war j^g gg^ in motion a unique agency 
for placing the national ji^ans, which proved instantly and 
brilliantly successful. jHe mvented the system of five- 
twenties and ten-fortieslfoj, ^he permanent funding of the 
national debt ; and no f,;cheme has yet been found better 
than this in the complet:-e^egg ^^^d flexibility of its opera- 
tion, i 

With wonderful darilg ^nd force of character, he put 
aside the constitutional standard of value, and did not 
hesitate to override the f^j^^^^^^-^g^tal law against impair- 
ing the obligation of co^^tracts, in his eager and patriotic 
determination that evei' p^i^.^^te interest should yield to 
the public necessity. %e ^^de it the condition of exist- 

le country that they should con- 

3 the support of the public credit. 

ion with vigorous determination 

against the most powdj-ft^i opposition. A few banks 

prudential, and sometimes from 
; but Mr. Chase and his system 
at last acquiesced, or went out of 
g his resolute methods, and with 
his powers and resources, he in- 



ence for the banks of tl 
tribute their resources t( 
He enforced this condit 



would not comply, from 
political considerations 
triumphed, and they all 
existence. And pursuin 
unabated confidence in 



sistecl on the reduction of the rate of interest on the na- 
tional loans from six per cent, to five per cent., in the 
very height and pressure of the war, when three millions 
of dollars a day were required to maintain the armies in 
the field. 

These were the great leading features of Secretary 
Chase's financial policy. Even this cursory review of 
them exhibits their novel and masterly character. They 
could only have emanated from a bold, original mind of 
distinct ideas, strong, unhesitating, revolutionary in its 
vigor, imbued with self-confidence, and feeling itself equal 
to any emergency. The novelty of Mr. Chase's situation, 
and the ease and ability with which he met each succes- 
sive and threatening phase of it, carrying his great bur- 
den steadily to the end, have never been fully appreciated. 
But history will not fail to award him the title of great- 
ness for his deeds during this period. 

It were idle to say that in the prosecution of his large 
and vital schemes, Mr. Chase made no mistakes. If this 
were true, he would hardly have been human. The issue 
of his five per cent, legal tenders was a mistake. The 
legal-tender measure in its application to pre-existing 
contracts w..,, ct mistake, at least in our judgment. The 
injurious character of this application he himself recog. 
nized, and aimed to correct by his noble decision on its 
unconstitutionality after he became Chief Justice. But 
the easy-going public, and the lawyers of the great cor- 
porations who became his associate judges, were content 
to endorse even the errors of the great Secretary, which 
the wiser judge had himself condemned ; thus exhibiting 
in vivid and striking colors the difference between greater 
and lesser men ; between mere lawyers and statesmen, who 
while they recognize national necessities, maintain the 
prerogatives of justice over the plausibilities of the law. 



But we have no need to criticise the defects in Mr. 
Chase's financial administration, when we find that botli 
judges and legislators are unable to see them, or at least 
are thus far unwilling to recognize and remedy them, 
after long years of trial and experience. 

The issue of the five per cent, legal tenders by Mr. 
Chase in the crisis of the war was an effort made with 
the laudable purpose of reducing the rate of interest on 
the new loans required. It did not attain this object, 
while it had the effect, in connection with dissatisfaction 
with the military situation, to rapidly advance the pre- 
mium on coin, an effect which Mr. Chase was warned 
against, but which he refused to believe beforehand. But 
this, and the legal-tender measure, in its application to 
pre-existing contracts, were mere incidents of his general 
financial policy. While we take exceptions to them, 
others do not. The policy itself was broad and original. 
It carried the country majestically through the war. 
It paid the nation's debts. It has astonished the world 
by its success. Some of its leading features are to-day 
adopted by three millions of British subjects on our 
northern frontier. The financial prosperity of the coun- 
try under the system of greenbacks and national bank 
notes has reached a fabulous height ; and so enamored 
has the whole nation become of it, that it is impos- 
sible at present to get the popular approval even foi* 
any modification of the system, though such a modifica- 
tion has long been considered desirable and necessary by 
its author. This is a result which might well satisfy the 
highest ambition of the greatest of financiers. 

Of Mr. Chase's career as Chief Justice, we may sayit 
has been comparativel}' brief, and part of it has been 
clouded by illness. But without any long training as a 
lawyer in great cases, his clear and masculine intellect 



5 \ 

I 

,1 

was adjudged by Mr. Lincoln to afford ample reason for 
his elevation to the head of thejcourt ; and that opinion 
has been fully justified by the ievent. In every respect 
he has been master of his place. In the impeachment 
case of President Johnson all felt the presence of a con- 
trolling mind and will, which to a large extent shaped 
the character and result of that memorable trial. The 
dignfied bearing of the Chief Justice on that occasion, 
his resolute and impartial purpose, and his lofty aim in 
behalf of what he deemed sound law and exact justice, 
were fully recognized at the time, and it will be long be- 
fore their memory is obliterated. 

In transacting the general Imsiness of the court. Judge 
Chase manifested those rare administrative powers that 
m irked his whole life. They belonged to the character 
of his understanding:. It was his nature to direct. His 
mind leaned forward, so to speak, to give tone to and 
exercise control over whatever came within the sphere of 
his action. He emitted force, activity, and energy. 
The business of his court was thus under the impulse of 
these qualities, and its action corresponded. 

His leading opinions in court were mainly on questions 
connected with national affaii's, questions touching the 
relations and powers of the rebellious States, the limita- 
tions of military authority, the legal-tender question, and 
others of a kindred character. On all these subjects his 
judgments were marked Ijy the high qualities of the states- 
man as well as of the jurist, and they afford unquestion- 
able proof of his clear and lofty intellect and broad and 
accurate perception of the demands of his position as the 
expounder of both law and equity. For he had always, 
in all the relations of life, a stern sense of justice, into 
whose service he believed in pressing the law whenever 



6 

possible. He gained liis earliest renQwn as a lawyer from 
siicli convictions. 

Mr. Chase became a United States Senator from Ohio 
in 1819. Mr. Seward was chosen in the same year. Bnt 
while their sentiments did not materially differ on the 
slavery question, there was a variance in their political 
position. Mr. Seward represented the old Whig party, 
and aimed to preserve its organization. Mr. Chase was 
the representative of the Liberty party, so called, and the 
special advocate of anti-slavery ideas in a political organ- 
ization established to render them practical in adminis- 
tration. With Mr. Seward the same ideas were of a more 
sentimental cast, and took on no immediately belligerent 
aspect. Mr. Chase was thus an object of even greater 
hostility on the part of the slave-holders than Mr. Sew- 
ard. He stood alone, the representative and champion 
of his party in the Senate. Perhaps Mr. John P. Hale of 
New Hampshire, who had been chosen Senator in 1846, 
might claim the honor of holding a similar position ; but 
it was pre-eminently Mr. Chase who was the object of the 
vindictive wrath of the slave-holding party. All their 
strong indignation fell first on him. His speeches on 
the subject of slavery were not frequent, but they were 
always terse, passionless, and logical. He was not, like 
some other anti-slavery men, regarded as a mere fanatic, 
but as a much more dangerous antagonist. He was 
considered an enemy to be feared, since he aimed to 
undermine and overthrow slavery by logical and prac- 
tical processes, and not by sentiment and declamation. 
His position as Senator was an arduous and trying one. 
He stood outside of what was termed the " healthy po.li- 
tical organizations," and was tabooed completely by pro- 
slavery intolerance, and, as far as possible, ignored in the 
business of legislation. It was a deliberate and offen- 



sive ostracism of which he was every day made to 
feel the weight. Yet he bore himself with dignity, 
never allowing himself to be betrayed into unseemly 
altercation, which his adversaries aimed to provoke. 
His conduct as a Senator under these embarrassing 
circumstances forms one of the most marked features in 
his life. He steadily rose in influence and regard, and 
by the moderation and force of his character alone con- 
quered the prejudices of his opponents and extorted 
their respect for his evident sincerity and devotion to his 
cherished convictions. And he did this without the 
graces of oratory, and without any commanding ability 
■ as a debater. It was the habit of Mr. Sumner* at that 
time, who had not then been elevated to the Senate, to 
say that Mr. Chase's Senatorial efforts were " Light with- 
out Heat." This was perhaps, in a certain sense, a just 
criticism ; but that was a period in our anti-slavery history 
when heat was a much more al)undant quality in the dis- 
cussions of the time than light; and Mr. Chase's utterances 
were thus calculated to supj^ly an important want. He 
never made an anti-slavery speech that could be replied 
to with eflPect, for the very reason that his logic was im- 
pregnable, while he indulged in no manifestation of feel- 
ing upon the subject. 

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his late eulogy on Mr. 
Seward, credits that statesman with being the leader of 
the anti-slavery movement in this country, and also the 
leader of Mr. Lincoln's Administration. We cannot ad- 
mit the accuracy of either statement. And we may say 
in passing, that it was not Mr. Seward who settled the 

*NoTE. — It is but just to Mr. Sumner to say that in allusion to this remark, he thus 
speaks: " Do you not misapprehend the remark attributed to me? If made by me, it 
was not in 'criticism,' but in description, and probably suggested by the famous defini- 
tion of equity, lianded down from antiquity, 'mind, without passion.' As it appears in 
your text, it is inconsistent with my sentiments towards the subject. I never was h.s 
critic. I place Mr. Chase as high as you do, everywhere." 



8 

Trent difficulty by deciding to surrender the captives, 
as is alleged by Mr. Adams. ' Mr. Lincoln himself did 
this, in the single observ^ation made by him, current at 
the time and current ever since, that the country could 
not afford to have more than one war on hand at a time. 
This was the key-note of that transaction, and Mr. 
Seward was left to make the argument. x\nd without 
wishing in the least to detract from that eminent man's 
just renown, we must say that he lost an oj3portunity of 
striking a blow in favor of the rights of neutrals such as 
may not occur again in a century. 

But it is of Mr. Adams's assertion in behalf of Mr. 
Seward, that he led the political anti-slavery movement, 
that we desire particularly to speak. If anybody can 
claim that distinction it is Mr. Chase. But we con- 
ceive that nobody can rightfully claim it. It is the glory 
of that movement that it had no chief. It was headed 
by an array of noble and earnest men, who moved shoul- 
der to shoulder in the van of that holy enterprise. N o 
one of them could be fairly said to be in advance of the 
other, or to be in any sense the leader of the movement. 
And the removal by death or desertion of any one, two, 
or three of the foremost could not have destroyed or even 
weakened the organization, or arrested its impetus. The 
great wave rolled onward l)y the force of the mighty in- 
spiring ideas that were its quickening spirit. It was to 
the vitalizing power of truth, and not to the lead of any 
man, that its victory was owing. The men were there 
who represented that truth, but if they had fallen, others 
were ready to take their places. Among those foremost 
men was Mr. Chase. He was there by choice. He was 
an anti-slavery man, pure and simple, first and last. 

Mr. Seward was a Whig first, and an anti-slavery man 
afterward. He never led the movement. He was 



9 

carried onward by it. He believed in the old Whig 
party. He was cliosen Senator by it when it was 
overwhelmingly strong. He was averse to its destruc- 
tion. He believed it could be educated so as to ac- 
complish every needed result. He was thus opposed to 
the formation of a new party with resistance to the spread 
of slavery as its fundamental idea. Mr. Seward belonged 
to the party in which such men as Henry Clay^ Daniel 
Webster, and Millard Fillmore were leaders ; and they 
were wholly hostile to the ideas of the anti-slavery men. 
Mr. Seward differed from them in this, that he was wil- 
ling to incorporate the new idea into the Whig creed, 
while they were not. But he resisted the formation of 
the new party to the last, and only joined it when he 
saw that the movement bad attained such force and vital- 
ity that it would go on without him. 

All this time Mr. Chase was urging with unremitting 
zeal the establishment of the new party under some 
significant appellation which would express its purposes. 
He suggested various names for it. In the numerous 
conferences of its friends at Washington during the win- 
ter of its birth, the titles of Free Democracy, Democratic 
Republican, and others were proposed by him. But 
under whatever name or title he cared not, so long as 
the party itself was created and christened. As the 
least objectionable of all, the name of Republican was 
finally adopted. 

This was the diiference in the position of these t\vo 
subsequent leaders in the Republican party. If either 
led in this great initial step that ended in emancipation, 
it was not Mr. Seward, but Mr. Chase. And as it was 
then, so was it afterward. Mr. Chase pressed forward 
with determined front. Mr. Seward often relented. In 
his speeches in the session of 1860-61, Mr Seward seemed 



10 

ready to compromise ; Mr. Chase never manifested the 
slightest sign of giving way l^efore the terrific events 
then in prospect. He felt the eternal justice of his 
cause, and he was ready to brave the consequences. He 
entered Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet in this spirit. Mr. Sew- 
ard entered it also, but his recorded acts and utterances 
show that he did not wish to face the crisis, but was 
ready to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. We 
do not say this with any view to disparage Mr. Seward. 
We utter it in the interest of historic truth. It illus- 
trates tbe contrast l)etw^een the two men. 

Mr. Chase feared nothing. He was as averse to war 
as anybody. But he aimed at justice and righteousness 
above all things. His moral courage was equal to every 
occasion. It was buttressed all around by every faculty 
and quality of his natui'e. There was never any other 
question with him but wdiat was the right thing to do, 
not what was expedient. Originally a Democrat, he left 
the Democratic party in the heyday of its power and its 
glory, on a conviction that it was wrong on the slavery 
question. He espoused the cause of the slave when it 
was hopeless. Solitary and alone he raised his flag, and 
called for recruits when tbere were few to follow. In 
all bis administrative acts he pursued the same line of 
action. He did the same in his comparatively brief 
Congressional career. He did not seek what was pop- 
ular, l)ut vigorously pursued his own ideas, and left the 
world to follow or refuse to follow as it might. His aim 
through life was to shape events. This was particu- 
larly the case while he was in office. It was the cause 
of numerous conflicts of a subordinate character witb 
President Lincoln, while he was Secretary of the Treasury. 
He was exacting in his department, and did not share 
bis appointing power with any assistant. He thought 



11 

he knew better than anybody else who should be ap- 
pointed ; and he oi'ganized his whole department on this 
basis, and would hardly tolerate the interference even of 
his chief It was this strength of conviction and force of 
will that manifested itself in every situation, and render- 
ed him a marked personality everywhere and at all times. 
' It has sometimes been made a subject of reproach to 
Mr. Chase that after the accomplishment of the great ob- 
jects of the war, emancijjation and enfranchisement, he 
coquetted with the Democrats and would have accepted 
their nomination for President in the election of 1868 
if it had been tendered him. But it must not l)e for- 
gotten that he was a Democrat from the start, by convic- 
tion and association. He believed that the general ideas 
of the Democracy in regard to State rights, limited pow- 
ers, strict construction, and other fundamental precepts 
of the old Democracy, embodied the true doctrines of 
government ; and he wished the party that professed 
them and really believed in them to succeed. His aim 
from the beginning to the end of his career was always 
to bring the Democratic party into harmony with the 
anti-slavery sentiment which he considered was merely 
to make it consistent with itself. In pursuance of this 
purpose he was willing to become its candidate. To 
succeed in this was to achieve a cherished desio-n and 
accomplish a favorite object. If he could incorporate 
his own political ideas on the old Democratic creed, 
he would have a party that represented his ideal of the 
true political organization to govern in this country. 
It is the key to all of Mr. Chase's alleged political in- 
consistencies, to understand, that he was one who 
held steadily to the fundamental principles of demo- 
cratic government, and sought always to apply them 
without regard to political organizations, or to conse- 



12 

quences of any kind. His attitude in the recent Presi- 
dential election was in harmony with these views. He 
advocated the union of Republicans and Democrats 
under the lead of Horace Greeley, and gave the move- 
ment his Avarm support. He thought the action of the 
Administration toward the South was cruel, revengeful, 
and corrupt. He did not believe in Gen. Grant's style 
of government, and felt very keenly his appointment of 
judges to the Supreme bench for the purpose of revers- 
ing the well-considered and well-founded decision of the 
court in the leo-al-tender cases. 

As one of the most forward and urgent of its founders 
and originators, Mr. Chase may well be supposed to have 
fully understood the objects of the Republican party. He 
regarded it as an instrument to achieve a purpose. When 
the war was ended, and all its brilliant successes and tri- 
umphant results assured, his most fervent desire was that 
allhostility between North and South should cease. He 
desired above all things harmony and reconciliation. He 
sought in every way to abate animosity and restore frater- 
nal feeling. He desired the crushed, and broken, and deso- 
lated South to be speedily rehabilitated and re-instated 
in its former prosperity. He had been the friend and 
champion of the blacks when they were enslaved and 
under foot, and now he desired to see not one right or 
privilege of the white man abridged or withheld from 
him in the new order to be established. 

He saw the tendency of things was to continue the 
punishment of the white man, and he deprecated its in- 
justice and impolicy, and set his face against it. He 
looked upon the slave-holder as a spoilt child, who de- 
served punishment, but who had got all, even more than 
all he deserved. The idea of regarding him as a perpet- 
ual culprit and enemy, was abhorrent to his mind. 



13 

The same sense of justice that animated him in espous- 
ing the cause of the slave, rose in hostility to the need- 
less humiliation and j)unishment of his old oppressor. 
The events of the war had not disturbed the just l)alance 
of his powers, nor was his mind warped or beclouded by 
the passions that contest had evoked. 

In the serenity of his nature, he contemplated the situ- 
ation with candor and clearness. When the blind 
partizan feeling of the couutry countenanced and de- 
fended slavery, he set himself resolutely against its in- 
justice. When the tables were turned, and it was no 
longer the black, but the white man of the South, who was 
made the victim of prejudice and passion, he just as de- 
terminedly put himself in an attitude of hostility to that. 
It was the misfortune of the country, that mortal dis- 
ease had laid its remorseless hand ui)on him, prior to 
the selection of an opposition candidate for the Presi- 
dential canvass of 1872. If Mr. Chase, in the fullness of 
his health and vigor, had led in that memorable contest, 
the result would probably have been far different from 
what it was. 

But it was ordained otherwise ; and while the country 
has been deprived of his further personal services, there 
is left to it the rich legacy of his opinions and his judg-^ 
ment upon the complications that are fast rising upon 
the horizon, through the mismanagement of the South- 
ern question — complications that might have been, and 
ought to have been, and would have been averted, but 
for the presence of a moral and mental insensibility in 
our national affairs, every way discreditable to the 
country. 

It is ever the lot of public men of eminence to en- 
counter obloquy. Mr. Burke goes so far as to say, " it 
is a necessary ingredient in all true glory." Perhaps Mr. 



u 

Chase was called upon to endure less of it than any one 
of his contemporaries. It is the great complaint of 
scores of our public men, living and dead, that they 
have each been the victim of unecpialled malignity, l)y the 
ini])utation of bad motives and by the denial of all just 
and patriotic impulses for their conduct. To men con- 
scious of their ov^n integrity, it is hard to bear these slings 
and arrows of outrageous fortune. But no man felt or 
bemoaned them le?s tlian Mr. Chase. In his case they 
were charges of selfishness and ambition. As he was 
unconscious of either, the allegations never ruffled him. 
They are charges easily dealt with. None more so. 
They may be true of any man without being derogatory 
to his character, or injurious to his reputation. Ambi- 
tion usually involves selfishness. But a man may be 
justly and honoral)ly ambitious. It depends on the 
character of his ambition, whether it is any reproach to 
him. There are foul and gross ambitions — ambitious 
that wade through seas of blood to reach a throne 
— ambitions that would wreck the fortunes of a strug- 
gling nation to attain a personal end. Such are the 
ambitions of the usurpers and tyrants of all history^ 
and of the Arnolds and Burrs of our own annals. 
But of the ambition to reach a high or the highest 
station, in a free commonwealth, by open and hon- 
orable methods, what is there in that to provoke 
censure ? 

If Mr. Chase is amenable to any charge of being 
aml)iti6us, it is only this. With a nature born to com- 
mand, with clear views of public policy and public ne- 
cessity, w^ith an inflexible will, and an earnest purpose 
to realize his conceptions, what less strange or less blama- 
ble than that he should covet a theatre on which to act, 
and which would afi:brd him the means of carrying out his 




15 

ideas ? If he aimed at this, simply by impressing the 
public with his ability, and his patriotism, and his in- 
tegrity, making use of no corrupt influences, or degrading 
agencies, and descending to no low arts or sinister en- 
ticements but seeking only to show that he was capable 
of advancing the best interests of his country — we might 
admit the charge that he was thus ambitious, with no 
detriment to his fame. The charge is merely that Mr. 
Chase desired to be President. There is no pretense 
that he ever sought the place by unworthy means. As 
implying any stain upon his reputation, it thus dissolves 
and disappears in the handling. We feel a freedom in 
treating the imputation since it does not necessarily in- 
volve dishonor, whether it be repelled or not. It is 
unlike those vulgar and grosser vices which the public 
sense instinctively detests as indicative of grovelling 
natures — such as prevarication, falsehood, venality, and 
corruption. No breath of slander, even, ever tarnished 
for an instant Mr. Chase's name or character throuo;hout 
all his public career in these respects. He was above 
suspicion as well as above reproach. His native recti- 
tude was of such a lofty type, his integrity so complete, 
the stature and complexion of his inborn manhood so 
commanding, that he challenged recognition everywhere 
and at all times, as an illustrious specimen of that 
noblest work of God — an honest man. 

Kesolution was a leading characteristic of Mr. Chase's 
mind. He was bold, determined, fearless, even wilful. 
He abhorred indirection and inaction. He was not a 
man of roving intellect, or a dilettante optimist. He 
had precise views and purpose^, and the c^uestion with 
him was how to accomplish them. He did not so 
much believe in things coming right as in putting them 
right. He did not profess to have a philosophy adapted 



16 I 

to every phase of liuman affairs^ so much as to have 
settled and determinate ideas npon the sul)jects which it 
^vas his duty to deal with. 

Whether in the domain of puhlic or private lift;, or in 
that of ideas, his opinions were fixed and his judgments 
established. He indulged in no fantasies of speculation. 
What he knew, he knew. What he did not know, he 
did not. He had a mental reticence and a profound 
sense of the great issues of our being, which forl)ade him 
from approaching the discussion of such topics, except 
with feelings of reverence and awe. The religious senti- 
ment was strongly imbedded in his nature, and it is no 
slight testimony to its validity that it w^as able to make 
so firm a lod<T:ment in a mind like his. But his sterlino; 
honesty and the wonderful vigor of his moral fibre 
formed a nature so robust and rugged that he did not so 
much as other men need the support of religious convic- 
tion. He was of the fullest stature and the highest pat- 
tern of manhood, without regard to his l)eliefs. 

But private life is the great test of character. It is 
comparatively easy to have a Sunday ha])it for the world, 
and to remain ever unspotted to its gaze. But in the 
intimate relations of the friendly and family circle, to 
be wholly irreproachable is given to few. Among these 
few Mr. Chase stands conspicuous. In this sphere he 
seemed without faults or failings. Calm, dignified, 
social, and warm-hearted, he was the joy of his friends 
and the delight of his associates, not only for his active, 
but for his negative qualities. He was not merely 
pleasing, he was in no way displeasing. His habit of 
command, naturally cultivated in his high duties of ad- 
ministration, and his native decision of character, could 
never be fully disguised any more than his lofty moral 
qualities ; but they were so tempered by an unfailing 



17 

sense of justice, and by sucli sweetness and evenness of 
disposition, that tliey rather added to the charm of his 
presence. His affectionate nature was his own great 
solace. It drew around hhn tender and faithful hearts, 
who enjoyed and who sympathised with him, and who, 
until hereft by death, did not know how much they 
loved him. 

Of Mr. Chase's mental gifts we have not spoken ex- 
cept incidentally. Without any surprising reach of mind, 
he possessed extraordinary force and precision of 
thought. He had a judicial intellect. Nature formed 
him for a judge. But she also made him for an actor in 
affairs. So distinct were his conceptions and so methodi- 
cal his mental operations, that it is hard to affix a limit 
to ^\'^hat he was capable of in the line of abstract inves- 
tigation. 

He displayed resources as an administrative officer 
that imply an intellectual power and acumen beyond 
what would l)e inferred from his speeches or writings. 
He had a great faculty of explanation. He could make 
abstruse things seem very plain by comparatively few 
words. He was not deterred from undertaking to eluci- 
date any topic because of its difficulty, or because it did not 
come within the range of his special studies. Anything 
that was valid and real he attacked with confidence. He 
had a faculty of knowing what was really knowledge ; but 
he resolutely declined to employ his powers in dim specu- 
lations upon the unknown and the intangible. And yet he 
was fond of the lively play of fancy in poetry ; his sense of 
wit was broad and genial ; he doted upon the humorists 
and could even make verses himself on occasion. But 
though his mind, like that of most public men, dwelt 
mainly in the actual, and expended its vigor in expound- 
ing and elucidating known principles and doctrines, yet 



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it did not confine itself to these. It had an orignal mo- I 

tion of its own. Its tone was progressive, rather than con- | 

servative. This was amply shown in his anti-slavery 1 

career. It was particularly manifested in his finan- 
cial projects and management, where he broke boldly 
away from old example and high authority and became 
a law unto himself, demonstrating his prescience by his 
success. He possessed great alertness of mind, showing 
wisdom to conceive as well as discretion to act. It was 
not that wisdom which comes of correctly judging the 
comparative merits of the notions or systems of others, 
which is the type of most wisdom in the world, but it .' 

was that higher quality of mental action which originates I 

problems, and then accurately solves them. This was a ' 

quality exhibited by Mr. Chase far beyond any of his , 

contemporaries. It constitutes bis chief claim to great in- 
tellectual distinction. And this power he displayed \ 
chiefly in the discharge of his duties as an administrative ' 
officer. But it is none the less clearly a specific intellec- 
tual faculty. 

On the whole, therefore, we are amply justified in pro- ^ 

nouncing him one of the wisest, greatest, noblest men of / 
his time. His character merits the highest eulogy, and | 
deserves to be held in everlasting remembrance as a pre- ' 
cious legacy to the youth of his country ; and it is his 
glory that in the great crucial trial of republican institu- 
tions he did as much as any man of his day and gene, 
ration to demonstrate the efficiency of democratic govern- 
ment and preserve it pure and stainless before the world. 



